Lamphier: Too soon to count Ontario out, despite media spin on census

Gary Lamphier, edmontonjournal.com02.08.2012

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EDMONTON — I wish it were otherwise (we media types love to sensationalize the news, haven’t you noticed?). But the truth is, Canada’s 2011 census offered few real revelations.

Some journalists did their best to attach greater significance to the numbers — notably in relation to Ontario’s relative decline — than was warranted. But for the most part, the latest census data merely reinforced what we already knew to be true.

In a nutshell, the 2011 census showed that Canada’s population grew rapidly and the Western provinces grew fastest (surprise, surprise), while Quebec and the Maritimes lagged.

And while some Eastern pundits moaned about Ontario’s decline, due to the steady loss of manufacturing jobs and the fact that more new immigrants headed West, StatsCan’s data actually presented a pretty mixed picture.

Indeed, Ontario’s population expanded by more than British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan combined over the past five years. But since the country’s traditional provincial heavyweight has a far larger population (12.9 million, or 38.4 per cent of the national total), its gain in percentage terms was smaller than Canada’s three westernmost provinces.

Overall, Canada’s population grew by 5.9 per cent to 33.5 million since the last census in 2006. That’s faster than any other G8 country including the United States, mainly reflecting Canada’s generous annual immigration quotas.

Meanwhile, the well-documented westward shift continued apace, driven by the ongoing resources boom in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

Energy-rich Alberta (up 10.8 per cent) was the fastest-growing province, followed by British Columbia (up 7.0 per cent) and Saskatchewan (up 6.7 per cent).

Growth in Ontario (up 5.7 per cent) and Quebec (up 4.7 per cent) slightly lagged the national average, while Eastern Canada brought up the rear as usual, with provincial population growth rates of 3.2 per cent or less.

At 12.6 per cent, Calgary led all of Canada’s 33 major urban centres — those with populations of 100,000-plus — in growth, followed by Edmonton (up 12.1 per cent), Saskatoon (11.4 per cent) and Kelowna (10.8 per cent).

However, several Eastern cities also posted robust growth rates, including St. John’s, Moncton, Quebec City, Toronto, Oshawa, and Ottawa-Gatineau.

Indeed, the population of Milton, a small bedroom community southwest of Toronto, jumped by more than 56 per cent, while the overall Toronto CMA (Census Metropolitan Area) swelled by an impressive 9.2 per cent to nearly 5.6 million.

Even on its own, the city of Toronto had a population of 2.6 million in 2011, or roughly 500,000 more people than Calgary and Edmonton combined.

At the other end of the spectrum, Windsor and Thunder Bay were the only two major cities that suffered population declines during the 2006-2011 period, reflecting the well-chronicled woes in auto manufacturing and forest products.

The census also underlined the fact that Canada, despite its wide open spaces, is an increasingly urban society.

Roughly 70 per cent of the country’s population now lives in cities, and fully 35 per cent reside in either Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. Rural Canadians, on the other hand, now account for just 18.9 per cent of Canada’s population.

But again, it was the disproportionate hand-wringing by media types in Ontario that got my attention Wednesday. To some degree, it’s understandable.

The province where I spent the first 35 years of my life is currently drowning in red ink, with a budget deficit of $16 billion. Although the all-important auto sector is showing signs of rebounding, the province is still reeling from the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs in recent years.

While Toronto continues to hum along, propelled by the most diversified local economy in the country, smaller cities like London, Kitchener, Barrie and Windsor are struggling to regain their footing. Even Waterloo, the home of Research In Motion and Canada’s high-tech capital, has had its confidence shaken.

I’m really not sure how Ontario will dig its way out of the current mess. The high loonie doesn’t help, and the manufacturing sector’s traditional reluctance to invest in new capital equipment or research and development has left it ill-equipped to compete in an increasingly globalized world.

But somehow, some way, I think Ontario will claw its way back. Let me tell you why. I’ve seen this movie before.

More than 30 years ago, when Ontario’s economy was on its knees following the brutal 1980 recession, I wrote a cover story for Today, a weekly magazine published by The Toronto Star. The piece was titled: Ontario: How Are the Mighty Falling.

At the time, Ontario was run by longtime Tory premier Bill Davis. Like today, the province’s manufacturing sector was crumbling, while Alberta’s oilpatch was soaring.

We all remember what happened next. By the mid-1980s, Ontario was back in gear, and Alberta’s economy was in the ditch, courtesy of falling energy prices and the impact of Pierre Trudeau’s reviled National Energy Program.

While there have been several economic cycles since, my point is this: the status quo never holds. Change is constant, and the future seldom unfolds as the forecasters and pundits predict.

So while Alberta’s economy rolls along for now, and Ontario grapples with enormous challenges, don’t buy the prevailing media spin that power has shifted permanently to the West. Truth is, nothing is permanent.

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